Garbage

Oh, this beautiful country never ceases to amaze and confound me. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I'm sure I'll mention it again, the garbage trip here is ridiculous. For the most part the garbage collection system is non-existent. In the cities supposedly garbage collection exists but it's spotty service at best. They're supposed to come once a week and they come once every other week. Outside of the city in some places they're supposed to come but never do. And I don't know what happened, but the concept of garbage cans is a foreign concept around here. So, I'll give you one guess as to where the garbage goes. That's right, on the ground. Sometimes in one place, but definitely on the ground. For example, my friend had bought an ice cream from a street vendor in Santo Domingo and was trying to figure out where to throw the wrapper, not seeing a zafacon (garbage can) nearby. A guy, seeing her confusion, came up and took the wrapper out of her hand and threw it on the ground and told her "that's where garbage goes." Another example, I saw some students walking home from school the other day. They give them a merienda (snack) at school during their recess and some of them save it for the walk home. So...these girls were walking home and had 3 bags of chips. They split one bag into the other two and then the empty bag got thrown into the irrigation ditch that runs alongside the road. Or there's the other school girls that were walking by my house yesterday and chucked their milk containers down in the middle of the road.

Or there's this example of a place where a lot of garbage gets thrown. This spot is right beside the Rio Guanaré that runs through my town. Eventually, if this garbage gets collected, which is questionable, it will get put in one spot and burned. The tragic thing is that most of it (almost 80%) is organic and could be used for compost here in this agricultural region. And making compost here is pretty easy because it's hot and humid so things break down rather quickly. I'm hoping this is a project I can work on while I'm here. Keep your fingers crossed for me!